The Adventure of the Blue Box and Parallel Worlds
by Safiyyah
Summary: Sherlock&John get transported to the real world. They are considered fictional characters and don't belong. How do they track down that blue police box and go back to their world? How will they deal with those two blokes who play them in that one show...
1. Chapter 1

John awoke to the blur of a familiar, posh, bored voice. It was indeed Mycroft Holmes, crouched inelegantly and displaying a bright smile. He was not wearing his usual suit garb, but wore a greatcoat and a multicolored scarf around his neck. John had to admit it was strange to see him in such casual clothing. He didn't think the man owned any.

"Tsk tsk, Martin, what have you been doing to look so utterly debauched? Actually, I don't want to know. I'm just here to tell you that Benedict wants to speak with you." He stood up, impossibly tall compared to John's position on the grass, and held out a hand to hoist John up. In lieu of accepting the kind gesture, John just blinked stupidly, staring up at the man in disbelief.

Alright. He didn't remember much about how he got to this point. The very last thing he remembered was the act of being throttled inside a box. A blue, telephone box, if he recalled correctly. Unfortunately, he hadn't gotten a look at the assailant, and must have passed out?

Mycroft frowned when John ignored him. "Where are we? Where's Sherlock?" John paused, rewinding what Mycroft had said to him, "and did you call me Martin?"

The frown turned into an amused smile. "Ah, very funny."

"Mark!" someone cried in the distance and Mycroft turned to acknowledge the voice, waving an "I'll-be-there-in-a-second" gesture.

Mycroft—or Mark, rather—shot John a doubtful look and said, "Take a minute to recuperate, alright? Have to deal with some issues. Coming, Sue, darling!"

John raked a stressed hand through his hair as he watched Mycroft strut away.

It took a moment for John to realize he was sitting against a tree, exposed to a large field, little cottages, and a grand, Victorian-styled mansion in the far distance. Scattered within the field were a plethora of camera crews. He was certainly not in London anymore.

John pushed himself to his feet, stumbling dizzily. He shook his head to right himself, and noticed an unmistakable billowing greatcoat, blue scarf and dark, wavy hair in the distance. His eyes lit up and he bound determinedly in that direction.

A woman was dabbing at Sherlock's face. When she finished doing her job (she was applying makeup!) she said something inaudible to John's ear, smiling at John, and Sherlock promptly whirled around and also smiled brightly at him. A bit too brightly.

Before John could open his mouth, Sherlock spoke first, "Ah, there you are. God, you look terrible. What have you been doing for the past half hour?"

John was suddenly very angry at Sherlock's nonchalance. "What have I been doing? Oh, you know. Woke up not knowing how the hell I got here, where you were, and what was going on around me. The usual. What have _you_ been doing?"

Sherlock looked surprised for a moment, but recovered and chuckled. "Sounds like a hell of a break. I've been reviewing the script and just wanted to run through of couple of lines in which I thought we could interpret a different way—I wasn't sure if the way we'd rehearsed it was the best. Hold on let me find it…" he leafed through what must have been a script. A bloody script!

John scoffed incredulously. "So you signed us up to be in a movie or something? Thanks for telling me, really nice of you. I am completely lost here, you know. I don't even know where I am. I think I was drugged, and possibly even abducted. We both were. Why the hell are you acting like things are so normal?"

Sherlock leaned in, as if he didn't hear correctly. "Sorry?"

John was positively seething so he closed his eyes tightly in order to block out Sherlock's infuriating face from his mind. "You—Oh, don't play stupid. You heard me. Did you plan all of this? Is this for a case?" He opened his eyes, and they were set aflame with frustration.

Sherlock was examining him curiously until a wave of understanding crossed over his features. "Oh. Good, very good, in character and all that. But seriously, Martin, this line here—"

"Wha—you can't be serious!" John yelled, face boiling hot with fury, "You are an insufferable bastard sometimes, really!"

"What's going on here? I heard yelling," a man with a Scottish accent cut in, looking amusedly between John and Sherlock.

"Martin's improvising," Sherlock said matter-of-factly.

"For god's—my name is not Martin!" John cried indignantly.

"We apologize, Dr. Watson," said the stranger smugly.

"Thank you," John huffed, satisfied, then jerked toward to stranger. "Wait, how do you know my name?"

The man laughed, pat John on the shoulder like an old mate, and engaged a cameraman as he said, "He's too much, this one. I love it. Carry on you two." Then he walked away.

So, when Sherlock started going on and on about _lines_ and _delivery_ John just stood there staring at the man in absolute disbelief. Finally, he couldn't deal with it anymore and stormed off into the field.

It was then that a gloved hand reached out, covered John's mouth to stifle his protests, and pulled him (with great struggle) to the side of a cottage, hidden from everyone's view.

John's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets when he saw his captor's face.

"John. Do not make a sound. I'm going to remove my hand from your mouth," warned Sherlock bloody Holmes.

John pushed himself away from Sherlock, stumbling backwards. "Oh my god," he hissed.

"I know," said Sherlock coolly, understanding.

"But you're…over there," John said softly, and pointed absent-mindedly behind him. "I just gave you a piece of my mind."

"I'm not and you didn't. I'm here. I am Sherlock Holmes, not that man over there. He simply plays me in a show."

John was taken aback. "You're mental!"

"Am I? Do you know we are on of a set of a television show called 'Sherlock?' Do you know what that means, John?"

John felt his heart sink and clenched his fists. "No I really don't because you're speaking like a madman."

"That means we're not real in this world. We are fictional characters."

"How…how is that possible? I saw Mycroft—"

"Mycroft's fictional too. Though, that's something I'm not too disappointed with. Do you remember the blue box?"

"...vaguely."

"It must have been some kind of parallel-world device. We are now in a world where John Watson and Sherlock Holmes are characters from a novel, written nearly 150 years ago by a man named Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. We are actually celebrated literary characters. I am listed as one the most famous literary characters in the world." The afterglow of the phrase 'most celebrated literary character' was grafted onto Sherlock's face. John was not finding this information pleasurable in the least. Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. "I think you're somewhere on the list too."

John was stunned for a second or two, but quickly shook himself out of his stupor and threw his hands in the air. "You're making this up…you've finally done it. You've finally lost your mind."

"Please. I'm perfectly sane. And do I look like I have the time to play games? I nicked one of the camera crew's mobile phones and Googled it while you were being useless and unconscious. Google never lies. Look." Sherlock held the mobile up to John's face, and John squinted to read the text for several moments. Everything Sherlock said was there. John's heart started racing.

"Well, then. Glad to know you're the same arrogant twat in this world," John spat. Sherlock scoffed. "But I don't understand. We are completely real!" John pinched the skin of his arm hard. His eyes watered. "Christ, see! I can feel pain."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "You watch too many films. We are real, of course. We are living, breathing people with lives all our own. We're just not supposed to be real while we're living in _this_ world."

John looked up to the sky and shook his head in disbelief. "This is absolutely ridiculous."

"Believe me, I am as appalled as you are," he said, but it didn't sound too convincing. The demented sod seemed positively _enthralled_ by this situation.

"That would explain why people keep calling me Martin. The name doesn't really suit me." A long pause. "What do we do now?"

"We need to find that blue box."


	2. Chapter 2

John sighed his trademark long-suffering sigh, perhaps the sigh that was manufactured by the very people standing only several meters away from him. "Do you think we should try to speak with the creators of this—our show? Explain our situation. Maybe they can help us find the blue box?"

"No, definitely not," Sherlock drawled, "they would think us crazy, mentally unstable no doubt and send us off to Bethlem Royal. What would they know about a singular, blue police box?"

"I don't know…maybe it's something people do here? Travel in police boxes?"

"Uh, no. That's too far-reaching," started Sherlock condescendingly, "We were transported to_ this_ world via the police box, which met us in _our_ world. For some reason, I don't think the people of _this_ world visit our world on holiday. This whole," he gesticulated his hand aimlessly in the air searching for a word to describe the events, "adventure of ours is a fluke."

"God, this all sounds like a confusing sci-fi show or something."

Sherlock froze to process John's words, and then grabbed his friend's shoulders with force. This what he always did when someone was conveniently in a near distance and he had a revelation. "That's it, John! Brilliant!"

"What's it?" John asked, truly confused with how Sherlock always managed to be inspired but the simplicities of his thoughts.

"The box could be fictional too! It could be of _our_ world. Oh, I could just kiss you!"

John cleared his throat awkwardly, shrugging off Sherlock's passionate proclamation. "Uh, thanks but isn't that a bit of a stre—wait, who am I kidding."

"Stupid. I can just Google it." Sherlock whipped out an Iphone and typed furiously. "Come on...come on…blasted service, I could do better with a carrier pigeon—yes! A **police box** is a British telephone kiosk or callbox—no, we don't need that. Ah ha!" he cried triumphantly and continued to read, "'Today the image of the blue police box is a trademark of the BBC, as it is widely associated with the science fiction television programme _Doctor Who_, in which the protagonist's time machine, a TARDIS, is in the shape of a 1960s British police box.'"

"Huh. That sounds interesting. Looks like they have better telly in this world."

Sherlock smirked, and assumed a regal posture as he said, "Well, if they're making a show about us, they obviously have great taste."

John laughed hysterically at that comment, even though it really wasn't funny. It was a bit depressing and, you know, highlighted the fact that John was currently inot real/i.

Sherlock spoke as if he were speaking to his skull back home, unaware of John's presence. "Whoever was in this TARDIS machine must have known just how to push our buttons because he dropped us off here in this mess. But why? What has this man to gain? He could, of course, just be doing this for sport. He's definitely aware that he, himself, is a fictional character, and that we are too—hence our Dopplegangers within several paces. What's the point? Is there even a point? There has to be some kind of connection between us and this man. Maybe he wants us to figure out the connection."

John was amazed with how easily Sherlock could talk about this, like it was a regular case. This just proved that absolutely nothing surprised Sherlock Holmes. "Connection? How could we possibly be connected to a man in a flying, time-traveling police box? Last time I checked we were a show about you and me…solving crimes, I guess. That doesn't really correlate."

"No, it's obviously deeper than that."

"Wait," John interrupted Sherlock's moment of prodding his brain, "if they're filming a show about us now…how are we here? Shouldn't we be…not created yet?"

Sherlock seemed to relinquish previous train of thought and turned his attention to John, a very rare feat. "Very good question John, you're on top of your game. I'm thinking that this here," he motioned to the fields and mountains in the distance, "Is something in our lives that has yet to be seen."

John stared absent-mindedly at the area Sherlock had motioned to. "…you've lost me."

Sherlock sighed. "Have you lost your wits already? Pity. What I mean is that what they are filming is basically our future. A series of events that are going to happen to us."

"How the hell do you figure that?"

"Do you doubt my methods?" Sherlock said. It sounded like a threat.

John sighed and continued to stare off into the distance, enraptured by this new and startling information. "So our future is literally being written before our eyes. Unbelievable."

"Most certainly and delightfully not boring is more like it. This has _nothing_ on that ridiculous case the Americans wanted me to look into back home. Now we need to find this Doctor Who. Let me get more information. Don't move." Sherlock was back to typing voraciously on the Iphone, spidery fingers dancing over the screen. John sat down, his back sliding against the side of the cottage until he plopped onto the grass, then rested his head onto raised knees, meditating.

Moments later, Sherlock broke into his peaceful contemplation with, "The TARDIS, or 'Time and Relative Dimension in Space' is, as I've already mentioned, a time machine. The man who operates it is called The Doctor."

John raised his head. "Bit pretentious just calling himself 'The Doctor.' It's like you calling yourself 'The Detective.'"

Sherlock ignored him. "How are we possibly going to track down a man in a time machine?"

"Ask around?" John half-joked.

"The only problem is that he's _fictional._"

John pursed his lips. Sherlock apparently wasn't in the mood for jokes. "Right, right. What about the writers of the show?"

"What about them?" Sherlock snapped.

"Could we maybe find them and ask them to write about The Doctor meeting us here? They can make it happen, right? Since they determine our every move." John shuddered at the thought.

"We'd need to be in our world for that to work, obviously."

John considered this. "But what if they wrote about The Doctor coming here, to their own world, and meeting us? It would have to happen, right?"

Sherlock looked at John like he had three heads. Disbelief quickly turned into exuberant joy. "That's fantastic! Look at you. You're positively exuding brilliance today." He clapped his hands together once and began to pace back and forth along the width of the cottage, staring at the content on the mobile phone in his hand. "

John grinned at the praise. "So let's get to it, then. I don't want to be stuck in a world where I don't exist for very long. Have any names?"

Without missing a beat, Sherlock said, "Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss," then laughed brusquely, "Oh. Oh, this is rich."

"Hm?"

"The Gatiss one is Mycroft."

John choked on his spit. "You're joking."

"I wish I were. He's one of the main writers. God, Mycroft always manages to weasel his way into everything even when he isn't real."

Suddenly, the sound of a group of chattering people became increasingly audible. Sherlock held out a hand, hauled John up and they hid behind the cottage, listening and waiting. The voices disappeared after only several minutes.

"So, how are we going to go about this? Pretend we're the actors? Exposes ourselves for who we really are?" John asked, dusting dirt off his jeans.

"If they're going to need to write about us, I suppose we'll need to gain some trust. We'll work our way to the top. Come on, follow me."

-x-

Sherlock was bounding toward a silver trailer within a reasonable distance, trying his best not to be noticed, and leaving John behind as per usual. He pounded on the door, it swung open, and he was met with a wide-eyed glance that looked all too familiar.

"What the—"

"Hello. Please, don't be too frightened. Let me explain, quickly, before you faint or do something that would waste vital time. My name is Sherlock Holmes, and I am alive. You have given me life and now I ask for your guidance. Now, may I come in?"

The man looked at him with his mouth open in a perfect 'o', then shook himself back to reality. "They've really outdone themselves on body doubles. I didn't think there even was someone out there who had even a tenth of my mug."

"May I come in?" Sherlock repeated, and it sounded more like a demand than a question.

"Uh, sure, sure. Come in."

Sherlock snaked into the room and the man shut the door behind them. The actor couldn't help but stare and nod with approval at Sherlock.

"Mr. Cumberbatch, if I'm not mistaken?"

"That's me. I'm sorry, but I'm just in awe. How did they find you? It's absolutely unreal how much you look like me."

"That's because I am you. Well, in a way. You play me in a show."

Benedict gave a brusque laugh. "Sorry, but first Martin thinks he's John Watson, now you, my body double, thinks he's actually Sherlock Holmes. Things are getting a little too passionate around here."

Sherlock sat down on the leather couch, not allowing his gaze to leave Benedict's face. It was going to be difficult to convince the man that the fictional detective he'd played had sprung to life and was now sitting in his trailer and having an actual conversation with him.

"It's the whole, honest truth. How can I prove it to you?"

Benedict sighed, and leaned against the counter. "Alright, I'll play your game. How old are you?"

"34."

"Who is your brother?"

"Mycroft Holmes," Sherlock muttered distastefully. Benedict gave an amused grin at that.

"Ah, no…these are questions any fan of the show could answer. Why don't you deduce what you know about me by just looking? Go on."

Sherlock quirked his lip, eyed Benedict from head to toe and then flicked his eyes around the room, taking in all sights. His eyes became alight with certainly and he began, "You're in your thirties, like me, appropriately, and are an actor who's been coasting in small roles but recently got his big break playing me. Items in your trailer suggest so. You've recently just refurnished the place. There's a picture of you and your ex girlfriend in the far corner which you've yet to remove, suggesting that you still miss her because she broke up with you due to your sudden ultra-fame. You have the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle there on your bookshelf and they look relatively worn, meaning you are quite passionate about your work, going all out and into the head of your character. You like to give off the appearance that you are only high-brow when in reality you enjoy the best of both worlds. You've been brought up from by family of actors, hence that photograph over there—your parents scream actors."

Benedict smacked his lips together and smiled. "Well, you're very good. But you could also just be a very good actor. Maybe we need to compare beauty marks to see if you're actually my Sherlock Holmes," Benedict joked.

Sherlock shrugged. "If that's what it takes." He was up and looming over Benedict in under a second, taking out his portable magnifying glass and examining the scene of the actor's neck.

"Uh…so you have that thing too, I see. Very efficient," Benedict said, gulping and trying his best not to make too much contact with Sherlock's intrusive face.

"Yes, the birth mark is in the exact same place as on my neck. Look."

"I don't believe it. How do I know you're not just a stalker?"

Sherlock sighed. "How about the scar? It should be on your upper thigh. Burned myself during a chemical mishap."

Benedict's eyes went wide as he looked at the scar, unzipped his trouser and pulled down one pant leg to display an identical reddish-brown infliction, starkly contrasted with his alabaster skin tone. "So it's not just you? That man who I thought was Martin…was that actually John Watson? I really can't believe I'm saying this."

"Oh. Bugger. I think I may have forgotten him, yes. Hold on." Sherlock opened the door and called out, "John—what—"

Sherlock was pushed to the side by John, or not-John rather, as John followed behind his look-a-like with a disconcerting look on his face.

"Sherlock, this is Martin," John said sheepishly from the stairs.

"Jesus Christ, Ben, are you buying this load of shite?"

"He's pretty convincing, I must say," Benedict said, casting a glance at Sherlock, then at John, who'd shut the door behind them and made his place at Sherlock's side.

Sherlock hissed at John, "It would have been easier if I got one of them on my side, then used that one to get the other one on our side."

"Curiosity got the better of me, sorry," John said matter-of-factly.

"We can hear you, you know," Martin stated angrily.

"Listen," Sherlock stepped forward, "We don't want to be friends and we don't mean to scare you. We just need you to hear us out."

"How am I supposed to sit down take two absolutely, ridiculously crazed fans of ours claiming to be the _fictional characters we play_ seriously?"

"We are not claiming to be them, we are them."

"Right."

"Oh, this is a great start Sherlock. You're really making a nice impression." John barked.

Sherlock ignored him. "We need your help convincing the writers of this show that we need to meet a certain man in a blue box."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" Martin shouted. "Blue box? Really? The next thing you're going to tell me is that Godzilla is real."

"I'm still stuck on the fact that he's actually Sherlock Holmes and that's Dr. Watson," Benedict said robotically, watching every move Sherlock and John made with intense curiosity. "So you're saying that 'The Doctor' is real too?"

"Exactly, yes," Sherlock said, relieved that he finally was able to convince the man of his existence, "We've been transported to this world via his TARDIS."

"Bollocks," Martin muttered.

"Please," Sherlock began. He never used niceties unless he really needed something, "Hear us out."

Benedict gave Martin a just-give-this-a-chance look and they both sat down on the sofa, as Sherlock and John stood before them and told their tale. The two actors listened in deathly silence.

"The connection is pretty obvious," said Martin resolutely once Sherlock had finished speaking. "Well, to us at least."

"And what's that?"

"The majority of Doctor Who writers write for Sherlock."

"Ha!" Sherlock cried, causing everyone in the trailer to jump skittishly. "Fantastic. Now bring us to the them will you? I have quite a favour to ask of them."


End file.
